One-Winged Angel/Literature: Difference between revisions

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* And an interesting twist from ''Night Mare,'' book 6 in [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Xanth]]'' series: the protagonist, Mare Imbri, ''is'' a "Night Mare." When, in a climactic scene, she confronts a shape-shifting villain, he ''almost'' saves himself by shifting from human form into horse form. Imbri does eventually defeat him, but it becomes much, much harder to do so. It isn't just because she can't hurt a fellow horse either, it's because she's ''in heat'' at the time. (''Sigh'', [[Xanth (Literature)|Piers Anthony...]])

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Red Court vampires can either take the form of beautiful young men and women... or hideous black rubbery bat-creatures. The human form is an illusion, which is bad news for anyone who's infected.

** Also, this is explicitly the main power of the Knights of the [[Artifact of Doom|Blackened Denarii]]. They change from human into some horrible form for combat, with a twisted Angelic rune on their forehead and a second set of eyes. So far we have seen: A snake-man, a medusa-haired human/panther thing, [[~~Everythings~~ Worse With Bears|a six-legged horned fanged bear]], a normal human with ''a shadow that will strangle you'', an obsidian statue, a feathery tentacled thing, a praying mantis with [[Nightmare Fuel|little praying mantises for blood]], an emaciated grayish spiny humanoid, and various forms of big and ugly and scaly and hairy.

** Also, this is explicitly the main power of the Knights of the [[Artifact of Doom|Blackened Denarii]]. They change from human into some horrible form for combat, with a twisted Angelic rune on their forehead and a second set of eyes. So far we have seen: A snake-man, a medusa-haired human/panther thing, [[Everything's Worse With Bears|a six-legged horned fanged bear]], a normal human with ''a shadow that will strangle you'', an obsidian statue, a feathery tentacled thing, a praying mantis with [[Nightmare Fuel|little praying mantises for blood]], an emaciated grayish spiny humanoid, and various forms of big and ugly and scaly and hairy.

** Interestingly, Nicodemus (the head Denarian) explicitly does ''not'' have a [[One Winged Angel]] form- both because he's [[The Chessmaster]] by nature and would rather put his power into abilities other than raw strength, and because between the [[Artifact of Doom]] hangman's noose he wears (which makes him immune to conventional attacks) and his own skill as a warrior, even his base human form can overpowering anything if need be.

** Interestingly, Nicodemus (the head Denarian) explicitly does ''not'' have a [[One-Winged Angel]] form- both because he's [[The Chessmaster]] by nature and would rather put his power into abilities other than raw strength, and because between the [[Artifact of Doom]] hangman's noose he wears (which makes him immune to conventional attacks) and his own skill as a warrior, even his base human form can overpowering anything if need be.

* In [[James Swallow]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''[[Blood Angels (Literature)|Deus Sanguinius]]'', Arkio starts to metamorphise under the influence of Chaos. Inquisitor Stele can contain it, but {{spoiler|at the climax, fighting Rafen, he starts to bleed black blood, and then to change in form. Rafen shows him himself in a mirror and he breaks it in rage. Then the Spear of Telesto rejects him.}}

* The Storm King, [[Big Bad]] of [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Memory Sorrowand Thorn]]'' trilogy, upon being summoned back into the world by [[Evil Sorcerer]] Pryrates, takes on an [[Eldritch Abomination]]-esque form that must have been a lot of fun for the author to write.